Buried in comments and answers to other questions here on meta (some linked below), there is an underlying questions that we need to talk about. Are we a Home Improvement community or a DIY community? It seems like the questions are all leaning toward home improvement, and DIY ones are discouraged. Since the site url is DIY, but the name is Home Improvement, it makes it even more confusing.
To me, there is a big difference. Home Improvement would be questions directly related to your physical home, and potentially items in the home that are permanent. DIY implies it is for people that like to do things themselves, not just related to your home. Handyman may be another term more synonymous with DYI.
Here are some example questions that I would consider DIY, that may not fit under the Home Improvement umbrella:
- What should I use for a stable base for a 10x12 wood shed I am building?
- What tool tools and equipment do I need to dovetail joints for an end table I am making?
- How do I fix the leg of my dining room table that broke?
- What is the best material to make a picnic table out of?
- A hardwood tree fell in my yard and I cut it up for firewood, how do I store it correctly to season it for firewood?
- What combination of bedding mix should I use for my raised bed garden (square foot garden)?
- What's the best way to hang my large LCD HD television to the wall?
Those are just a few, I am sure we can come up with others. Looking at the questions from the original proposal on Area 51, i see both types of questions.
Seeing that the site is not showing a lot of growth and we are having a hard time getting enough questions, perhaps we need to broaden the scope a little bit. People have also mentioned combining with the proposal for the gardening site. I also just saw there is a woodworking proposal.
What should we do?
are-woodworking-questions-in-scope
should-we-expand-the-scope-to-real-estate-questions
